I really could write anything in this spot right now cause nobody is going to give a damn about a random horror movie I’ll be talking about. Everybody by now is either in line, or somehow already seeing, The Dark Knight Rises. So I could write about, I dunno, Hostel or something. Then I thought about doing something clever that ties in, but sadly the studios didn’t like my “serial killer dressed like Batman” idea, so let’s go for option C: talk about Katie Holmes, who appeared in Batman Begins.

Katie Holmes was on “Dawson’s Creek”. She made some movies, including Disturbing Behavior, which is the subject of today’s review. And she took her top off in The Gift, which I have yet to see, but I will get to it soon enough. So now that I got that out of the way, let’s see how many people remember Disturbing Behavior.

It starts off with a football jock getting a blowjob in a car in an empty field at night. Stoner Gavin spots this and gets excited but soon the jock goes crazy and kills the girl. But then the cops show up and instead of arresting the jock, they help hide the body. Ok then. We then meet Steven, who’s played by the guy who will go on to play Cyclops in X-Men, but this movie was in 1999. Then again X-Men came out in 2000, so within a year this guy went from a high school student to an asshole superhero. Eh, seems like a lateral move if you ask me.

Anyway, Steve and his family move to some small town in some state that’s all peaceful and shit. Steve goes to school where he learns from Gavin that the school’s cliche is divided in classes. Hey! That sounds familiar! Wasn’t that used in Heathers? One particular group is called The Blue Ribbons. They’re full of jocks and cheerleaders who get good grades and have bake sales and blood drives and all that bullshit you were forced to hear about and maybe “volunteer” for in high school. Bleh. The only “regular” people left is Gavin, his friend UV who’s an albino, and Rachel (Katie Holmes). Needless to say, Steve falls for Rachel.

You know what’s funny? You could use The Blue Ribbons as a metaphor for Scientology. Some guy who was into cars kept giving The Blue Ribbons shit until they chased him down in the woods and then next thing you know, the car guy is a Blue Ribbon, even destroying his beloved car. Everything seems kinda off with these people and things get even more off when one of them gets horny for Rachel but she turns him down, so he turns into The Terminator and starts punching people at a grocery store.

So if you haven’t seen the movie, what’s going on is some psychologist dude invented a Clockwork Orange for teenagers and uses them to turn them into the “perfect” teenagers. I dunno you can’t have sex AND you have to like football? Sounds fucking terrible to me! So naturally what’s next is The Blue Ribbons turn their attention to Steve, but not before transforming Gavin. Steve and Rachel must uncover what exactly is going on BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!

Two things I wanna bring up before I go. One, there’s a janitor character who plays like he’s really stupid but Steven figures out that he’s not really stupid only because the janitor likes reading Kurt Vonnegut. I dunno why THAT was the give away. Here’s a shocker for you: I read Kurt Vonnegut. Do I seem smart? I thought so.

The second thing is the corny lines in this movie. Mainly the last line before the “twist” ending. So Steve decides to take his younger sister away from this small town and go back to their home town of Chicago, leaving their parents behind. I won’t point out the myriad of problems with that but then Steve comes across all the Blue Ribbons and must fight them off. But then the janitor shows up with this machine that makes a weird sonic noise that messes with the Ribbon’s head. Anyway, Steve meets up with Rachel and his sister on a boat heading to Chicago I guess and she goes “where to?” he goes “Home”. She goes “Where’s that?” And he goes….”where ever you and I go.” AWW-GAG!! Seriously?

Corny lines aside, I still like this movie. I remember liking it when it came out on VIDEO almost a billion years ago (when I graduated high school) (yes I’m old, leave me alone) and even after watching it again after a long period of time, I still liked it. It’s not a perfect film by any means, but it’s entertaining and it’s, y’know, something to watch. Plus it got Katie Holmes before she got all Tom Crusiey. I guess now she’s un-Cruised. Whatever.

♥♥♥

-Jason